The First One had first portaled Gi and Danna to the desert that had served as their decontamination zone, but it didn't look like it served its purpose well anymore.
Pockets of sand all around them were rotting as though they were simple leaves after an icy winter instead of microscopic rocks. It was a stark reminder that what they were about to jump into would be more corrupt than anything they'd experienced so far.
Gi took Danna's hand in his and squeezed. She gave him a brave smile back - the one that he'd trusted for every part of his life from family visits to the news that he'd be a father.
"We'll make it. Even death couldn't stop us."
"It almost did."
"But it didn't. You just have to have a little faith."
Gi pulled her in close and the two of them clung to each other desperately. Even if she was right, there was no reason not to take this last opportunity to hold each other.
One last connection in the face of oblivion.
Gi pulled back just so he could look into her eyes. "It's a shame we didn't have more time."
"After this, we'll have an eternity."
They held each other a few more minutes. Despite the urgency, the First One didn't interrupt them. Instead, she waited patiently, and when the two of them finally parted, she started to spin up her Divinity.
"We'll only get one shot at this. The corruption should be thin enough on the other side that I can sense you through your Truth when you come back. When I do, I'll open the portal."
The two of them grabbed each other's hands just as the First One was finishing her portal. "Good luck."
Without hesitating, the two of them jumped through the portal only to have it wink close behind them. Before Gi could even see the planet they'd arrived on, a powerful wave of corruption crashed into them and his paw slipped from Danna's grasp.
Whispers with the urgency of screams filled his mind. His thoughts clawed for purchase and his limbs flailed wildly in concert with them. For a moment, his paw grazed something.
A moment of instant clarity appeared before shattering as he lost contact.
Danna!
That one thought broke through the noise and screams, repeating over and over. His limbs now had purpose grasping towards where his mind thought he'd found that hint of clarity.
Awareness blossomed as he finally found Danna's hand in his own. Their mutual awakening caused them to pull each other close so that their connection wouldn't break.
The whispers still marched on in Gi's mind with all the force of a full auditorium. His entire being shook under the now gentle assault, but the two of them could hold on for awhile yet.
Danna held her free hand against her head. "It's... trying to itch its way inside of me like a needle dropped against my forehead over and over."
Gi's brow creased in worry. "We don't have long then." Danna nodded at his words and looked up for the first time. The two of them gazed out at the planet that they'd landed on.
Its color was almost normal. Grass, bushes, and trees dotted their vision and a rich blue was painted across the sky. The strange part was that everything on the land was green - bark, tree limbs, even dirt- and the same was true for the sky except blue. Blue clouds drifted lazily across it almost invisible against its similarly colored backdrop.
Danna squeezed his hand. "Let's get moving."
The scenery changed as they walked like a sliding panorama that had the illusion of infinity but the same patterns were repeated over and over again. With no sun in the sky and light seemingly coming from everywhere, it was impossible to tell north from south, but it didn't take long to find their path.
As they walked, the whispers grew louder. Even as contained as they were by he and Danna's connection, it was already well past the point that had driven Gi mad back in the Child Stage, the power he'd gained was the only thing that kept him sane.
Danna, without that same protection, struggled even more. Sweat impossibly trickled down the brow of her divine form and her breath came in heavy gasps.
"Are you okay?"
She gave him a weak smile. "I can keep myself together, but we should hurry."
Despite her insistence, they could only increase their speed to a fast walk, continuing to follow the corruption as it got stronger and deeper. Gi himself started to hear voices he recognized in them, none of them said anything coherent, but he felt just on the verge of understanding.
The planet warped. Spots in the sky melted, flowing down to the ground at impossible angles, creating pillars that defied all logic. The trees and bushes stretched, now growing at right angles to the ground.
Gi looked to Danna, but she didn't even notice their changing environs. Her attention was focused entirely inward as she struggled against the corruption.
"Just a little further." Gi's words were for himself as much as her, but he didn't know if it was a lie or not. The bushes, trees, and clouds started to laugh at him rough faces appeared hidden within their green bark or the puffy blue of the clouds. That laughter mixed with the whispers in his mind and he struggled to separate reality from corruption.
He continued on, practically dragging Danna by that point. His only desire was to stop and take care of her. Maybe even sprint back to their portal before she fell to the corruption, but there was no escape for them.
The either found the Filter or they ceased.
Each step took him further and further while the corruption got stronger and stronger. He could feel it worming into his Soul as the area around him became far too saturated in it.
As he felt each defeat within his own self against the power of the Old Ones, he almost gave up. Like the Child Stage, each of those defeats would be a scar upon him, carved into his Soul just as they had in his body. If he felt like this, Danna had to be worse.
Looking back, she still had one hand gripped tightly around his like a lifeline with her other clutched to her chest. Her eyes stared blankly at the ground as she mumbled to herself.
It was too much for her.
"Hang on, Danna." His words accompanied a rallying of his resolve. The whispers were still there and the corruption still chipped away at his Soul, but Danna wouldn't last if they continued like this. If he succeeded but lost her, what was the point?
Danna barely seemed to notice as he hefted her into his arms and started sprinting. Their surroundings continued to warp and change becoming more and more surreal, but Gi didn't have eyes for it. He could only focus on following the whispers before he lost Danna completely.
His legs ached even though he'd barely ran. Each step felt as though it lasted a marathon, but he still took the next one and the next one. He'd been reborn as a slime and fought his way to be with her, he wouldn't stop now.
The whispers ceased.
Gi stumbled to a halt at the sudden silence in his mind, only to realize that the whispers were still there just muted. A river separated them from a land of red and black that looked more like an abstract painting than anything he'd call reality. The whispers were the roar of the river contained within its waters.
Danna gasped as though waking up from a nightmare and she clutched at Gi like a woman who'd been drowning.
"It's okay," he assured her. "We made it... somewhere."
Danna nodded along, but she was obviously still trying to claw back her mind from whatever depths it had sunk to. Gi held her close, gently rubbing her arm to comfort her as he looked around the area.
Other than the river, the land of black and red, and the smear of green and blue that their side of the river had become, there was nothing.
Except...
An iridescent pearl about the size of a tire hovered over the water. It hadn't been there when he'd first glanced around, but had simply appeared when he wasn't looking.
Where everything else seemed like someone took a very artistic bent towards reality, the pearl looked completely real as though someone had taken a pearl from Earth and simply magnified it.
It was the Great Filter.
He didn't know how he knew as The First One had no idea what it actually looked like, but that was it - one of the two artifacts that the First One needed to push back the corruption.
"Danna, there it is!"
His wife rolled her head up as though drunk and blinked rapidly as she stared at the pearl.
"We-we found it."
Concern knotted Gi's features. "Will you be able to make the journey back?"
"I- I think so. I just need a moment. The corruption- the corruption..."
Her words trailed off and Gi thought she'd somehow succumbed to the whispers again, but her eyes weren't cloudy and she stared knowingly off into that land of black and red.
Gi followed her gaze and saw the silhouette of a figure approaching. His heart pounded in his chest. Despite the shifting outline of the figure emerging from the darkness, he knew it. It's gait and form were intimately familiar to him as he'd seen them his entire life as Richard.
Like parting a veil, the land of black and red shifted to reveal the form of a human man in his prime. Not the man Gi had known at the end of his own life, but one that he'd been shown through pictures in his parent's hallways.
The Father. His father.
His outline didn't disappear as he stepped up to the river where the pearl hovered in place. Instead, it danced and flickered chaotically around him blurring with the red and black backdrop.
The Father grinned.
Gi's instincts reacted like a wild animal. They demanded that he flee, to run from the predator that had stepped into their midst, but he'd long since mastered his own instincts. With an urge of Will, he pushed off the suffocating presence and calmed his beating heart.
"What happened to you?" At Gi's question, Danna finally stood, having shaken off the remnants of the corruption for now. Her teeth were bared like an animal set to bite.
She'd hated him in life and had more interactions with him in godhood than she. With her being weakened by the corruption, it was an impressive amount of willpower that she didn't launch an attack immediately.
"Power happened, boy." The Father threw his arms wide. "If I am to be a god, why would I suffer the weakness of a thin Divinity?" He gestured to Danna who couldn't hold back her tongue.
"You gave yourself over to the corruption. Accepted the Old One's influence. Don't talk to me of weakness."
Sadly, Gi had expected this. The fervor of the soldiers in the Father's heaven along with the corruption of King Rellington had seemed too coincidental to not be caused by the man before him.
"Why?" Gi couldn't keep the pain out of his voice. "In life, you consistently chose the worst path, but you always pushed towards the greater good. After our deaths, you even took care of Noah better than you ever had with me. This isn't who you are. So why?"
The Father just threw his head back and laughed. The dark outline flickered around him, swirling with his own mirth and distorting his appearance.
"Not who I am? Richard, it was your belief that brought me into being. It is your belief that defines who I am. Why would I bother empowering your enemies otherwise? Fader? The Prince turned King?
"You saw me as the greatest villain of your life so - here I am."
Gi stepped backwards as if he'd been slapped. His thoughts immediately turned to the First One and how different she seemed compared to her own heaven. She was a woman that had become a god and birthed monsters for war. In turn, those very monsters warped her into a god that was ruthless and deadly.
But at one point, she'd been an old woman who lived in an ivy covered manor. Was it true? Had Gi forced his father to be the corrupt god standing before him?
"You understand. Good." The Father smiled again, but it appeared wickedly long, flickering into the smeared reds and blacks of his background. "I want to break you - mind, body, and soul. I want to see you despair-"
A fist of golden light shot from Danna straight towards The Father. Before Gi could engage, part of The Father's outline broke off and cut through the fist like a whip, shattering it into panes of light.
"Danna, wait!" Gi felt a pain in his heart. He'd failed his Father and doomed him to this existence. The corruption would slowly overtake him, overriding any sense of self until he either faded into non-existence or was shifted beyond all recognition like the other slaves to the Old One that he'd seen. He needed to do something.
"We don't have time!" Righteous anger dripped from Danna and he could feel ripples of it through the River of Truth. Six limbs of golden light had already manifested beside her and she was ready to fight. "He's already lost. If we stay here too long, we will be too - along with everyone else!"
This close to the Filter, the corruption was far more muted, but it wasn't gone. If he could feel it when he and Danna weren't touching, it had to be impacting her even more. She was right. As much as Gi wanted to help his father, there was far more on the line than just one man or god.
"I'm sorry, dad. Danna's right. It may be my fault that you're like this, but this is bigger than you and me." Gi took a deep breath. "Thank you for taking care of Noah for us."
The Father started to laugh. "He's sorry." His voice tuned up several octaves and was joined by the whispers. "He's sorry." His voice switched back to normal. "What was that you said, 'the greater good?' I suppose we are more alike than I thought. Maybe you won't be such a disappointment."
Danna had enough. "Shut the fuck up!" Her anger ignited in a way that he hadn't seen since the night before his death. All six arms blazed across the river lashing out with attack after attack.
Each of them were casually struck down by The Father's chaotic outline without him lifting a finger. He just kept laughing, his voice tilting between the cascade of whispers and his normal speaking tone.
"Don't let him rile you up!" Gi knew his words were hypocritical, but they needed to focus on their mission. "You get the pearl and I'll keep him occupied."
Leaping upward, he took to the air. [Unstoppable Nobility] felt unstable so deep into this corrupted world, but being so close the Filter kept it solid enough.
Danna reformed her golden hands and sent them towards the pearl just as Gi fired off several [Divine Commandments]. Unlike Danna's attacks, Gi's were fueled by the core of reality inside him from his time as a mortal.
Though The Father still looked as though he was simply standing, his body darted out of the way, disappearing in one place and simply appearing in the next.
Gi's Soul Senses were strong, but he couldn't sense him using any sort of Skill, and even with his new Divinity, he was confident that he could have made out something similar there.
But there was nothing.
The Father wasn't using any Skill. It was as though each place in that red and black landscape was a possibility, and instead of moving, he simply embodied that possibility instead.
It made no sense, but Truth held so little sway here that any rule could apply or no rule. There was no true victory here surrounded by the Old Ones influence. They could only hope to grab the pearl and escape.
However before Danna's golden hands could grab the pearl, The Father threw his own hand forward like he was casting a net and his outline flung across the water to stick to the pearl like spiderwebs.
Fire erupted from the Filter, shattering Danna's golden limbs. The fire looked to be a child's drawing with a singular offcolor crayon, but even from Gi's height, he could feel the heat coming off of it. Like a flamethrower, the blast shifted, aiming directly at Danna.
Her Truth was that she was composed of radiant light. She didn't have a movement Skill like Gi did, but she simply leaned into the Truth. A bolt of light skipped from one section of the painted green landscape to the other, quickly dodging the flamethrower.
Gi fired off more [Divine Commandments] hoping that his attacks would cause distraction, but like before, the Father simply stopped existing in one spot and instead existed in another probability.
"He's messing with reality!"
Danna dodged another gout of flame before shouting back. "It can't be absolute with how weak the Old One's influence is here!"
She had a good point. That just meant that he needed more.
Gi poured Aether and Divinity into [Papal Legion]. Each otter flickered into being, but there was a variance to each one. Some were all white as normal while others had splotches of red, green, or black. Each also cost a different amount of Aether, any with red, black, or green generally cost less, but not always.
The important thing is that it worked.
A hundred and one otters filled the dome like influence of the pearl and ancient light gathered on their fingers. The river at the center turned golden from the influence of Gi's presence in the area and its edges started to turn white and black like a beach made of static.
He fired.
A hundred and one otters each focused on an area within the Filter's influence trying to limit The Father's movements. With no other options, The Father simply didn't move.
An explosion of light happened on the other side of the river. The white static pouring over the black and red landscape until the Old Ones' influence came drooling back in.
Gi's own attack had been blinded by the light of the others, but as the world turned back to red and black. He could see the hole he'd made in the Father's chest.
It didn't bleed like a normal wound. Instead, more of the black outline that surrounded him wriggled out of the wound like worms searching desperately to escape some terror within.
The Father's voice returned to a shrieking pitch of multitudes. "Like father like son. Like father like son!" His laughter returned to the booming natural laugh of a mortal man confident in his own abilities.
"An adequate attempt... for you. Let me remind you why you believed in my power."
The Father threw his other hand forward and the outline that surrounded him grew thin as every single scribbling scratchmark flung towards the pearl in an array of impossible geometry.
The chaotic outlines passed through the pearl and transformed into curved whips of shadow. Each of them latched onto the corruption just outside the sphere of the pearl's influence and held fast, creating a maze of pulsating living shadow. It flexed and stretched like a living creature.
Both Gi and Danna had dodged the swarm of shadows, but an additional gout of flame erupted from the pearl and targeted both of them.
The shadows hadn't been an attack but a cage.
All of his summons that hadn't been immediately killed by the shadow cage scattered, trying to avoid the flame aimed towards him. One by one, they were hunted down and burned into an explosion of light.
Gi himself wove through the shadows. They were tangible enough for him to use them as launching pads to quickly shift from pocket to pocket within the pulsating mass.
As tangible as they were, they didn't impede the flames at all. They licked at his heels as he continued to dive and dodge about, kicking off of the shadows to stay just one step ahead, but it was slowly funneling him towards the red and black landscape.
Gi wasn't confident that he was correct, but he thought that the Filter was splitting the Truth and Chaos with the river and he feared that he if he went in there without Danna, he might be immediately corrupted.
That only left him one out.
Gi activated [God's Passage], and just like with [Papal Legion], there were differences. Inside this space, it was insanely cheap on Aether. Normally as his only B Ranked non-Domain Skill, it was exorbitantly costly for him to use, but [God's Passage] worked by twisting space and time to place him quickly from one spot to another.
And in this place? Both of those things were weak concepts.
The flames touched him for a moment as he passed back through to the other side, but it barely singed his fur so quick was the touch.
Back on the other side, he saw Danna struggling to keep ahead of the flame. Like him, she was constrained to this side of the river and even her ability to turn into light only kept her just ahead of the fire.
They needed to end this soon so they could escape with the Filter.
The Filter.
Gi wanted to slap his paw against his face, but he couldn't afford the time. The Father continued to laugh uproariously, his voice sometimes turning into the shrieking whispers, while he commanded the flames to assault them.
The flames that were clearly empowered by the Filter.
Gi landed against one of the shadows to quickly halt himself. The flame took advantage of his stillness, but Gi released an [Endless Torrent]. Water cascaded from his mouth in a flood. He tried to enforce it with the Truth of Water, but being new to being a god, he wasn't sure how much it worked.
It did buy him the moment he needed though.
As the flames guttered out, Gi shot a [Divine Commandment] towards the pearl except this one was fueled by Divinity instead of his pocket of Aether. The pearl greedily absorbed it and he almost felt it ask the question: What should this power be?
The question was left unanswered though as Gi felt a great Will collide with his own. The shadows didn't disappear, but the flames flickered helplessly as Gi battled against the Father's powers.
"Use the Filter! With it, we can stop him!"
Danna returned to her human form and launched her radiant hands towards the pearl. With the fire barely there, she reached it without issue.
Within his mind, Gi felt Danna stand beside them. Two people trying to push down the wall that was the The Father's Will.
The Father's voice pealed in a series of shrieks. "Stupid son, stupid son!" He chuckled and it dropped back down to his normal voice again. "Finally figured out how to use every tool at your disposal. The Chaos. The Filter. Danna. But do you think it will be enough against me?"
In the battle taking place in Gi's mind, the wall lurched forward, seeking to collapse on them and swallow them whole. He strained, flexing every ounce of Willpower that he had, but inch by inch it fell further.
It had been like that his whole life. His father had always been this unstoppable juggernaut where whatever he wanted he got. It didn't matter if he was a child or an adult. That's just how it was.
Gi could feel himself sinking back into that old mindset and tried to rally another defense, but he'd lost his hold. The Father had gained too much ground. He was going to-
"Gi!" His eyes opened to see Danna right beside him. Her hair whipping about in an unseen wind and her hand outstretched towards his.
That's right. Things changed for me, for Richard, when Danna appeared. He's not invincible.
Gi slapped his paw into Danna's hand and squeezed it tight. The whispering that crept up on him unawares suddenly quieted and he felt the full strength of his own thoughts.
The two of them funneled all of their power through the Filter, pushing back the wall of The Father's Will that sought to crush them. His connection with Danna created a feedback loop, multiplying the force that he could bring to bear.
Their roles reversed and Gi could feel The Father barely clinging to the pearl, his Will not up to resisting he and Danna's combined might.
But... then he laughed.
It wasn't the wild one, full of chaos and madness. It was the ever so human one that he'd heard ever since he was a child.
"Look at this power, Richard. For once, I'm proud of you. You were weak in life, dependent on some street trash for a sense of worthiness. Then even she turned away from you and what did you do? You brought her back, molded her with your belief, and forced her to be what you wanted. The perfect divine battery to fuel you now."
"I-" Gi's Will stumbled and he looked to Danna. He remembered those fragmented memories he'd seen of her starting from his time as a slime and he remembered how he'd worshipped her. He remembered how perfect he believed her to be. "N-no, I didn't... I couldn't have..."
"Don't listen to him, Gi!"
The balance of power for the Filter shifted. His control slipped and the Father started pressing back down on him, but he couldn't focus.
Did I mutilate my wife by bringing her here? If I hadn't believed it so deeply, would she... even love me still?
"I'm... I'm sorry, Danna. I didn't mean-"
"Stop second guessing yourself!" Fury rang from her voice and ripples spread out from her, disrupting the painted world. "You've worked so hard to get out from under his thumb! Don't let him drag you back down!"
Gi struggled, pushing hard against The Father, but he couldn't mount a defense even with Danna's help. Their Wills weren't in lockstep and The Father was forcing them down, away from the Filter. "But if I did that to you-"
"Belief shifts a god's behavior, but it doesn't make them a slave to it. The only reason you think it could have is because you're still doubting yourself. You think that the only way I could love you is if you magically lobotomized me, but that's just not true."
Her dark eyes shimmered like all the stars in the universe as she looked into his own Soul. He felt her gaze lock onto their connection before an enormous amount of Divinity rolled out of her. It rippled through the landscape and everywhere it touched, things became real.
The brown of the trees returned, and instead of an abstract mush, it was textured bark that ran up its lengths to a thousand individual leaves, each glossy and veined. The grass spread outward in a wave, their blades rippling in the wind.
The Divinity continued to pour out of her. All of it stored up from the entire time that he'd been in stasis. The water became real, bubbling and moving with a light mist on its surface. Even the land beyond turned into a hellscape of flames and shadow.
"I loved you from the moment we met and my love stayed with you even when you were in a coma. I stayed by your side for five years until you finally moved on. I never gave up hope in you - in us. Death? Reincarnation? None of that matters to love like ours. Whether you're Richard or Gi, I will love you. Even if we fail here and our very existences are washed away, I will love you still.
"That is my Truth."
The blast of Divinity pushed The Father's Will back, but Danna herself slumped, only the cage of shadows keeping her within arm's reach of him. Her form looked weak, flickering like a light bulb on the verge of going out. She'd spent everything she had for him to understand her feelings - maybe even at the cost of everything.
Silence reigned in that small moment after her Divinity rang out and her next words were barely a whisper, only reaching him because of that silence.
"And you need to remember, that you're not Richard anymore. He has no hold on you."
Her eyes closed. Her form didn't disappear, but the shockwave of Divinity was slowly collapsing. The whispers started to itch away at his mind, and horrifically, a black outline started to surround Danna, one scratchmark at a time.
Tears shimmered in his eyes, but he knew what he had to do.
His Will flared, stronger than any force that he'd had before, pushing The Father back to a standstill. The landscape all around him smeared again and The Father mocked him with the shrill pitch of a thousand voices.
"Broke your toy! All alone! All alone!"
Gi bared his fangs, but he wasn't threatened. Danna had shown him the path forward and he finally, finally understood.
"I am enough."
Divinity ripped out of him in an uncontrolled deluge. He had no skill in using it, but that didn't matter. Truth wanted to be. That was the nature of it and he'd found no greater Truth than that.
Supported by his core of Aether, Gi's Will slammed into the Father's knocking him right out of the pearl and now Gi was fully in control.
"No! I can't lose. I can't lose."
His words were spoken with a hint of Truth, but he'd given so much of himself over to the corruption, it had no effect.
An ancient light blazed out of the pearl and their surroundings transformed as all of the power he'd pitted against The Father poured out of it.
The pearl hovered in the center of a grand cathedral. A statue of GI and Danna dominated its mighty wall and water poured out of a fountain, forming a waterway that drifted lazily out of its walls.
Then the light turned on The Father. Over his screams, Gi bellowed in defiance.
"I won't believe your lies anymore! For Noah, for Danna, for myself - I am enough."
A flickering black outline tried to fight back, but Gi released another burst of power. A church bell rang in the distance, burning out The Father's scream, and Gi held onto his power until he felt the last ember of the Father's existence wink out.
Gi collapsed.
His power left the pearl and the painted landscape returned with the exception that the red and black smears had been replaced with the same green as Gi's side of the river.
He and Danna tumbled to the ground, both of them completely spent. Her form continued to flicker while a black outline inched it's way around her person trying to pull her towards the Old Ones' influence.
Gi himself wasn't much better. The whispers screamed into his mind with more force than he'd felt even when being fully corrupted as a Child. The only thing keeping him sane was his purpose.
It had all led to this point.
Somehow, he gently picked up Danna's decaying form and took the pearl from the air. Its cleansing aura kept the worst of the corruption off of them, but Gi was far too gone for that to even help.
Chaos and madness seeped into his Soul even as he took one lumbering step after another. He had one moment of clarity as he wound through the forest, but it was just enough to see Eldritch symbols crawl from Danna's back onto his own arms and pulse in a familiar violet light.
"I'm sorry, Danna. You... deserved better than this, but if these are my last moments, there's no one else I'd rather be with."